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Anaplan vs SAP ERP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Anaplan
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (1st), Production Planning (5th), Predictive Analytics (4th)
SAP ERP
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
ERP (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Anaplan and SAP ERP aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Anaplan is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 13.3%, down 15.5% compared to last year.
SAP ERP, on the other hand, focuses on ERP, holds 20.0% mindshare, down 23.0% since last year.
Business Performance Management
ERP
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 09, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data integration enhances operational efficiency and flexibility
As a client developer and solutions architect, I use Anaplan for building modules and deploying logic end-to-end. I work closely with the business in an agile manner to ensure the model aligns with business needs Anaplan offers flexibility in building different options within the platform. The…
Srinivasan Kuppuswamy - PeerSpot reviewer
The amazing, robust framework with unlimited scalability earns its #1 status
The solution is not ready for the current e-commerce environment. Its was built for large enterprises who need to predictably optimize their human, material, and financial resources. ERP has evolved and businesses are changing. There are not many large corporations. Most are small enterprises with the capabilities of large enterprises through networking and platform integration. Some companies promote products but get things done with other enterprises as a network. Companies do not want to create new capacity but want to leverage existing capacity with innovative products. They do not want to spend resources on duplicating capacity or facilities. I do not think any ERP product is ready to support this environment so ERPs as a whole might end up being used for back-office functions only. It is not easy to evolve an ERP product because its intent is to integrate functions and processes within an organization. Whereas, in the new business model, processes are not limited to one's own enterprise but cut across different enterprises. There is no enterprise solution as this point in time for the current e-commerce environment so companies must integrate with many solutions.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Anaplan's in-memory calculation engine is super-fast compared to the old tools we previously used. You enter the data and everything shows up in one go."
"The best thing is that it's very intuitive and user-friendly. You don't need coding skills to manipulate the platform."
"Anaplan integrates well into my clients' core systems. The ability to aggregate the forms within the dashboarding is also useful. Only one of my clients has implemented workflow. Their usage has been very light. Dashboarding capability is probably the biggest one. My clients like having the ability to aggregate, slice and dice, and dynamically adjust things in the dashboards."
"The solution works very well for budgeting."
"The most valuable feature of Anaplan is machine learning. The solution is constantly evolving from feedback. Additionally, there is a wide range of training material online."
"Anaplan's scalability stands out compared to other platforms, especially for scenario planning and what-if analysis."
"It's simple to use with a lot of functions."
"It's real-time connected planning, so the calculations are pretty much seamless as far as your model is connected."
"The solution is very stable."
"This is a robust solution with a lot of control measures."
"It provides great visibility into the details of enterprise resource planning."
"It is a comprehensive and robust solution. It can provide lots of functional features."
"The solution is scalable."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The accounting module's record and report process is closely integrated with almost every other process."
"The features are very useful for finance."
 

Cons

"Automation needs to be built into this solution."
"One key area of improvement is pricing."
"The cloud engine slows down when working with a large dataset. It still lacks a powerful engine."
"It would be nice if the solution offered better extensions."
"The negative is that the higher the flexibility, the higher is the complexity. That can act against you as a negative because it does require a model builder or a coder/developer."
"Anaplan should come up with flexible options to connect to a data warehouse rather than an Anaplan hub."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"The integration technique should be a little bit easier."
"Reporting is why most companies need to acquire business intelligence add-on solutions, and when it comes to SAP ERP, they could improve the reporting graphical representation of the data."
"They need to improve a few processes, including transformation, intelligence, governance, modeling, etc."
"Improvements to the UI. The UI is pretty old, but this will change with the upcoming release of S.4.​"
"In the next release, I would like to see more technical integration for directly designed solutions on behalf of the selling process so that you can design solutions and not have to use ten or more other tools to get the solution for selling."
"There are a lot of manual tasks that are used by a lot of people, so it is a very good candidate for RPA."
"SAP is more expensive than some of its competitors."
"When there is a system error it provides an error code and a lot of times these can be complicated. The support team could have more knowledge to be able to assist with these situations more promptly."
"The system is over-customized."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced then it would attract more customers."
"The entry-level is anywhere from about $30,000 to $50,000 a year, however, it does go up significantly after that depending on the complexity and how much space you're using."
"The license is a yearly subscription. There are three licensing tiers: the model builder, planner, and the reporting."
"This is a yearly subscription. So a customer initially buys a workspace and specifies how much GB they want. The minimum starts at around 30 GB. You can buy multiple workspaces."
"The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions."
"We are currently using a free workspace license for 90 days. We are satisfied with the price of the solution. There are additional costs if you want more storage, the default limit is 250 GB."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"Anaplan is a bit pricier compared to its competitors - the license costs about $4,000 per user annually."
"I don't know the price, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"When we talk about pricing it is expensive. On a scale of one to ten, it would rank a two. There are no additional fees but the user licenses are high."
"SAP ECC is not cheap but I consider it the best system for managing an organization's data and processes."
"There is a one-time license that is needed to use the solution. The support is what is needed to be renewed annually."
"The solution is expensive so I rate cost a five out of ten."
"There is a license needed to use this solution."
"SAP is quite expensive."
"SAP ERP is expensive."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 9, 2021
Nov 9, 2021
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time consolidating numbers into one space, employees can reshift their focus to deep-diving into the numbers, which is a huge advantage because it frees them up to do more value-added work instead. I also li...
See 2 answers
JM
Oct 13, 2021
SAP ERP and Anaplan serve different purposes and actually work well together.   Think of SAP ERP focused on the Actuals, while Anaplan models the future. The reason why I’ve seen clients use Anaplan for planning vs. SAP BPC is Anaplan is more flexible and can easily keep up with constant changes in business planning.  While BPC is more of a consolidation tool, with Anaplan you can also have your driver-based models in a system vs. running them offline and only putting the answer into a system.   Therefore, my recommendation is to use both.
Janet Staver - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2021
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time consolidating numbers into one space, employees can reshift their focus to deep-diving into the numbers, which is a huge advantage because it frees them up to do more value-added work instead. I also like that Analplan is a collaborative solution - it makes building out forecasts and modeling data much easier than just using Excel because it is in the cloud and is more structured. Anaplan is also very well connected. For example, data from one use case can be used in other models. Moreso, if a change is made to one model, it will be changed in all other models as well. Although Anaplan requires a slight learning curve and some training, initial setup is fairly easy. And for the times where you have technical questions, I have found that support is adequate. However, Anaplan is quite expensive. Nevertheless, I am very impressed with the stability of the solution and its performance. Not only that, but I am impressed by its ability to scale phenomenally. SAP ERP has been recognized as the best solution in the class of ERP products. In addition, it provides excellent visibility into the details of enterprise resource planning. Like Anaplan, it is very scalable. I think one of the best features SAP ERP has to offer is the claim management. One disadvantage is that you cannot easily create customizations. Also, outside of the SAP for RPA it is required for you to use an additional solution on a platform as a service if you want to extend the solutions. Another downside is that the initial setup is not straightforward and can be quite complex, so you have to be prepared to handle that. Conclusion: Overall, I would give Anaplan a 9 out of 10 rating. Anaplan has many more advantages for me than SAP ERP and since both options are very pricey, Anaplan takes the win because I like that it has so much more to offer.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
6%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are your main use cases for Anaplan?
Anaplan is an industry-leading cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) platform that combines business planning and analytics in a single solution. It is designed to assist organizations...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time co...
What do you like most about SAP ERP?
The solution has made the most significant impact on our human resources function, specifically in HR operations and HR analytics. One feature of SAP ERP that I found most valuable is its use of co...
What needs improvement with SAP ERP?
There is a need for improvement in the business analytics aspect in financial reporting and also in sales and marketing analytics.
What is your primary use case for SAP ERP?
I am currently working in a group of companies, and we have the SAP HCM module. It is not fully implemented due to cloud issues, but we plan to transition to it. We are also using SAP S4HANA and ha...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora
B&G Manufacturing, Unilever, Life is good Inc., Joy Global Inc., City of Cape Town, Bhopal Municipal, Corporation (BMC), adidas Group, Butcher & Packer Supply Company, Franklin Valve L.P., Evoshield, Prime Meats, a Norsan Group company, EMC Corporation, Varian Medical Systems Inc., FC Bayern Mªnchen AG, AkzoNobel Chemicals B.V., T¾V Rheinland, Pacific Drilling S.A., Fire & Rescue New South Wales, University of Amsterdam, Pa_alon S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.